Monthly Archives: August 2010

The reviews are in: Mozilla Drumbeat’s “Popcorn” is tasty

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Brett Gaylor (left) and the WebMadeMovies community released their first public demo of "popcorn" last week -- and the reviews are pretty sweet.

Last week you may have heard that Brett Gaylor, open source cinema pioneer and director of RIP!: A remix manifesto, has officially joined the Mozilla team to help with Mozilla Drumbeat and the WebMadeMovies project. The WebMadeMovies team recently released their first demo of “Popcorn,” an experimental tool aimed at turning boring old online video into dynamic “hypervideo” that interacts with the rest of the web, pulling data from Google Maps, Twitter and Wikipedia right into the action. Early reviews and feedback of the demo are in — here’s a sampling of the response:

"Popcorn provides extra depth around videos, and the possibilities are thought-provoking." -- from Wired's WebMonkey.com

Wired: “Mozilla’s Popcorn Project Adds Extra Flavor to Web Video”

From Wired‘s WebMonkey.com:

Developers at [Mozilla's] Drumbeat project — an initiative that advocates new open web technologies — have created Popcorn, a tool intended to make web video every bit as interactive as the rest of the web.

Popcorn is a very new effort and still a bit rough around the edges, but results are already impressive. Popcorn adds metadata to HTML5 native web video, annotating videos with information like location, details about the people and topics in the video, subtitles, and licensing details. The metadata can be used in real time to add to the experience….

The result is what Mozilla developer Tristan Nitot calls “hypervideo.” What Nitot means is that Popcorn is connecting video to the rest of the web, linking it into the hypertext world.

Gizmodo: “Popcorn will contribute to the growth of free video on the web”

From Gizmodo.fr (translated from French):

Some very talented geeks just created a demo of their latest creation. Under the name “Popcorn,” the demo hides a javascript library for adding metadata to videos… – anticipating the future of the web.

“Video + html5 + popcorn.js = hyper-video“

More from Mozilla’s Tristan Nitot:

Popcorn.js is what I would describe as “hyper-video” (“hyper” as in “hypertext”): the ability to leverage data from the video and link to it, Web style.

I think this is a very significant step further for video on the Web, which was until now a very TV-like, passive and linear approach, now merged with the hypertext nature of the Web (its ability to link to things in other places), so that users can click on links in order to learn more. Of course, this is just a demo. Tons of things need to be done, but I see this as a very cool way to show what HTML5 and its video element, combined with the power of JavaScript and mash-ups.


“Mozilla Popcorn: a new dimension to video”

From the Romanian site CHIP online:

Video at this time is a mostly passive experience: you click and watch movies, pretty much…. Post-Flash technology opens new horizons for HTML5 video on the Internet.

“The future of web video”

A sampling of the reaction on Twitter:

“the future of web-video. Can’t wait for this to be the regular.” –adamstributer

“Popcorn semantic video demo brings us a step closer to Open Source Cinema” — gabrielshalom

“HTML5 video is not just video, it’s HTML” – html5guy

“E-learning video game changer?” – tylerwall

“Popcorn.js making internet video exciting again” –SimonHold

Feedback for round two: Less is more?

One interesting note on the user experience from CHIP online (with apologies for the poor translation):

Personally, I find [the meta-data] still a bit chaotic, and it steals attention away from the video, which should be the main star. Popcorn is just the beginning, and could be the way to a special experience. But success will depend more on how to implement it.

The first Popcorn demo takes an “everything but the kitchen sink” approach, showcasing ALL the various meta-data that could be included to enhance a video experience. That makes sense as a first demo designed to show the full range of what’s possible. But for subsequent demos, “less is more” may be the way to go — reigning in some of the meta-data to focus on serving the story more and avoid overload.

“Hyper-video” and “Popcorn” feel sticky

Other takeaways from the reviews and feedback:

  • People are adopting the “Popcorn” brand. Maybe that’s a brand we should consider making more central in our messaging around the project? “Popcorn” vs. “WebMadeMovies?”
  • “Hyper-video” seems to resonate with people as a way to describe what it is. In terms of grokking the front-end experience and helping first-timers understand the value and difference of open video versus “TV in a web page.”
  • Exploring the storytelling and creative possibilities will be key. Getting the user experience right will be as much a creative challenge as a technological one. Which is exactly why WebMadeMovies’ larger mission and plan to bring hackers and filmmakers together on the project is so ideal.

Popcorn veut contribuer à l’essor de la vidéo libre sur le web

Concept. Publié sur Gizmodo.fr par Allan Annas le 20 août 2010 à 16:18

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Des geeks bourrés de talents viennent de faire une démo de leur dernière création.

Sous le nom de “Popcorn” se cache une bibliothèque javascript permettant d’ajouter des méta-données à une vidéo. Ces dernières pourront être exploitées pendant la lecture de la vidéo comme l’explique le grand chef de Mozzarella Europe sur son blog.

Pour montrer comment fonctionne ce petit système qui préfigure l’avenir du web, les développeurs ont mis une vidéo (encodée dans le format libre Ogg évidemment) dans une page codée en HTML 5. Si vous avez un navigateur moderne (Firefox 3.5 minimum) et que vous voulez voir le résultat, c’est par ici.

MPEG LA n’a qu’à bien se tenir, l’avenir appartient à ceux qui ne veulent pas débourser de l’argent inutilement pour acquérir le droit d’utiliser un codec aiment la liberté ! [Brett Gaylor]

Mozilla Drumbeat Festival: registration is now open!

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Beautiful Barcelona will host the Mozilla Drumbeat Learning, Freedom and the Web Festival November 3 - 5. (cc Marcel Germain)

Registration for the 2010 Mozilla Drumbeat Festival is now open! Join teachers, learners and technologists from around the world November 3 – 5 in Barcelona to teach, hack, shape and invent the future of education and the web.

Not your typical conference

Imagine a teeming festival filled with different tents, each with its own unique flavor and focus as you move from tent to tent making up your own experience. The Drumbeat Festival will work just like this – with multiple spaces to teach, make and learn in a variety of different studios, labs, playgrounds and classrooms.

From a local learning incubator, badge lab and open source classroom to hackerspace playground, wikipedia lounge and video and learning gallery, there’ll be multiple spaces to dive deep and get your hands dirty.

The main stage will include keynotes from Joi Ito, Brenda Gourley, Bre Pettis, Mitchell Baker and others. Think Makerfaire + Hackfest + TEDtalks + Lollapalooza for open web education!

Mozilla Drumbeat Mitchell Baker

Lots of ways to get involved now

The brand new Drumbeat Festival site has tons of updated information and resources, including updated program info, the Festival wiki, and lots of ways to get involved now — from volunteer opportunities, to proposing your program ideas, to travel scholarship applications. Help spread the word about the Festival by sharing on identi.ca or twitter, or passing along the drumbeat.org/festival site to savvy innovators working at the intersection of education and the open web. See you in Barcelona!

Education for the open web fellowship: new deadline

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In May, Mozilla and the Shuttleworth Foundation announced a new Education for the Open Web Fellowship. The aim is to support practical ideas that help people learn about, improve and promote the open nature of the internet, as part of our commitment to supporting leaders working at the intersection of open education and the open web.

While response was promising, we did not feel any of the submissions were far enough along to award the fellowship in July as planned. So we’ve decided to a) push back the application deadline to October 17, 2010, to allow existing applicants to further strengthen their pitch and new applicants to throw their hat into the ring; and b) offer the early stage proposals a chance at small grants that will help them get off the ground.

We’ll also offer travel scholarships for three promising early stage projects to participate in the Mozilla Drumbeat “Leaning, Freedom and the Web” Festival in Barcelona this November.

What are we looking for? And how can you make your pitch stronger?

Based on learning from the first round of fellowship applications, here are five things we encourage applicants to consider in writing up their idea:

1) Tell us your story. The person behind the project is as important as the project itself.

We want to know about the social entrepreneur or visionary behind the project. The fellowship basically pays the salary for one person for one year — so finding out exactly who that person is is important. Create and flesh out your profile page on Drumbeat.org to tell us more about your mission in life, your bio, and your “big picture.”

(cc Mark Surman)

2) Community engagement and participation are key.

The best project proposals will clearly spell out how they’re going to engage communities and enable participation from real people. This is crucial — and often difficult to achieve in real life. So be sure to provide some meat around how your project will enable meaningful participation and community engagement. Simply saying something like  “we’ll move an existing offline  community over to online” or “we’ll reach out to community x or y” is probably not specific enough.

3) We’re looking for cross-pollination between open education and the open web.

The best projects aim for innovation in both the education and open web space. Great educational initatives that happen to have a web site or some online component aren’t quite it. And neither is simply building online tools or software for education projects. The best projects are true hybrids — ideas that can help reinvent education and make the web better at the same time.

4) Include a roadmap.

Promising people and ideas are great. But baked strategies and plans are even better. Try to include a clear roadmap of how you’ll spend your fellowship year, with an emphasis on outcomes, milestones and tangible products.

5) Make a great video.

If at all possible, include a short video or slide presentation. It can be as simple as you explaining the project to your web cam. You can also check out examples of other successful Shuttleworth Fellowship application videos for inspiration.

Remember: it’s not a competition — it’s a community.
Collaboration and communication between projects is encouraged. Let’s use this as a jumping off point for building ties and connections to each other that help grow the space. Check out and comment on the gallery of existing project proposals or rope others into collaborating around similar ideas.

There’s multiple ways for your project to get recognition and help.
In addition to the one-year fellowship, all applicants will be eligible for Mozilla Drumbeat’s new monthly grants for featured projects — which include $1,000 and hands-on help from Mozilla. Plus a chance to receive a travel scholarship for the Drumbeat Festival in Barcelona on November 3 – 5.

The fellowship grant amount will be  equivalent to one  year’s salary, and includes contribution toward expenses and travel — plus potential access to an investment pool that will match personal investments in projects by at least ten-fold. Fellows may also receive help with online fundraising, and future support in seeking grants from other sources.

The deadline for all applications is October 17.
To apply, simply fill out a project page and personal profile at Drumbeat.org. Project proposals must follow the original guidelines outlined here. Fellowship recipients will be announced by the end of the year.

What can Mozilla Drumbeat learn from the Awesome Foundation?

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Spreading love and rapid innovation through
“micro-genius grants”

What can Mozilla Drumbeat learn from “the Awesome Foundation” and its awesome mission to “forward the interest of Awesome in the universe, $1,000 at a time?”

Given that Drumbeat is considering a new mini-grants program for inspiring up-and-coming Drumbeat projects, we recently put that question to the Awesome Foundation’s Tim Hwang and Elizabeth Stark. Their $1K “micro genius grants” are helping to fund everything from post-disaster communication applications to putting stars back in London’s night sky with kites and LED lights. So what can Drumbeat learn from their experience?

A recent London chapter Awesome Foundation grant winner with his £1,000 cheque

Tim and Elizabeth’s presentation was indeed awesome — you can listen to the full audio version here. Here are some of the major takeaways for Drumbeat to chew on:

Mini-grants fill a great “small dollar” niche — especially for project testing and prototyping.

“There’s lots of opportunity to get a lot of money — from the Knight Foundations of the world, etc.,” Tim explained. “But it’s actually fairly difficult to get a modest sum of money, like $1,000.  Not every project needs $100,000 — a lot of things can get done with a fairly small amount of resources.”

Sometimes you don’t need a whole donut — you just need a timbit (forgive the  Canadian-ism.) Mini-grants help fill this need, especially for projects focused on early testing and prototyping. Which feels very agile and Mozilla-ish.

Sometimes great projects don't need a whole donut -- just a timbit.

Keep it lightweight and minimize bureaucracy.

Small projects often struggle to meet the infrastructure and reporting requirements of large funders. Awesome Foundation applicants only have to fill out an extremely lightweight online application form. It’s dead simple. And there’s no strings attached.

The deliberation process can be the most interesting and exciting part.

“Everyone really does have a say in what gets funded,” Elizabeth told us. “And often the deliberation process is the most interesting and exciting part.” This seems like one of the most important takeaways for Drumbeat — in some ways, using the process of deciding who should receive the award to build participation and community is the real meat of the entire effort. AF uses the deliberation process to build face-to-face community and participation in their local chapters.  They’ve found that contacting and talking directly to the people who have proposed a project is the best way to decide who should get funded. And they’ve also learned that it’s best, where possible, for the selection committee to deliberate in person. “Hashing out a long list over email can be a nightmare.”

The money is just one small part of the larger value to projects.

The actual dollar amount is small. But winning provides more than just money — it provides promotion, connection and opens additional opportunities as well. The award is often the starting point of a larger relationship, as the Foundation connects projects to past winners and other useful contacts. They also often help projects gain traction for larger funding efforts from sources like Kickstarter.

There may be opportunities for Drumbeat and AF to collaborate more directly in the future.

The Awesome Foundation is thinking about creating funds that are more topic-specific — like “the Awesome Foundation for Research” or “the Awesome Foundation for Flamethrowers,” etc. Mozilla Drumbeat could potentially partner or play a role here, for awards specifically geared toward technology and the open web?

Ok. So what does all this mean for Drumbeat’s own potential mini-grants program?

How do we boil this down into next steps for Drumbeat’s own version of micro-genius grants? Here’s some early questions and rough ideas:

  • How ’bout we call it: “the Mozilla Drumbeat Awesome Awards.” “Awesome” is a playful word that doesn’t take itself too seriously. And gives an explicit nod to the “Awesome Foundation” grants people are already familiar with.
  • It’s not just a “grant” — it’s an “award.” And a badge. And some hands-on help. Winning a Drumbeat Awesome Award could include:
    a) a thousand bucks for your project, PLUS
    b)     a cool community-designed award-winner badge you can attach to your project and show off on your web site or blog. (“e.g., Mozilla Drumbeat Awesome Award Winner — September 2010″)
    c) some hands-on help and coaching from the Mozilla Drumbeat team. (Which is something we should be doing for promising up-and-coming projects anyway.) Let’s learn from the Awesome Foundation’s example that the value of the award is greater than just the money.

    Drumbeat Awesome Award winners could get a cool Drumbeat-y badge to display on their project.

  • Use the selection process to build community participation and fun. This is probably the most challenging part to figure out, in terms of the precise process and mechanics. But here’s what I think we do know so far:
    a) We want to make the deliberation process as participatory and community-led as possible. It’s an opportunity to strengthen the community and refine what it means to be an awesome Drumbeat project, together. This is ultimately more important than just giving away a few thousand bucks.
    b) I think we should tie the process into our weekly community calls. We’ve been wanting to build more emerging projects and diverse voices into those calls, anyway. Having Awesome Award candidates do occasional lightning talks on their project, and then using the last Monday of every month to pick a winner would be a great way to add drama, excitement and participation.
  • c) The ultimate winners could be decided by a small jury. We can make the process of considering and short-listing projects for the award fairly ad hoc and organic. And make the discussion around who should win open to anyone. But then leave the ultimate decision up to a small jury to minimize complexity and make an executive decision?
  • We could invite Awesome Foundation members (like Tim and Elizabeth) to be on the initial jury. As a great way to help build buzz, signal collaboration between the two projects, and kick things off?
  • Past “Awesome Award” winners could then be added to the jury as we go. This could be a great way to maintain and strengthen relationships with past winners — by having them select the future winners. Over time, the jury becomes a kind of esteemed collection of Drumbeat project veterans that can share knowledge and offer guidance. And a great way to recognize and celebrate some of our most important customers and community members.
  • Look for opportunities to tie in local events? I thought it was interesting that the Awesome Foundation’s process of selecting winners ties in local chapters, and builds the idea of local community generally. Is there a way for Drumbeat to similarly tie in local events? At a project speed geek session, for example, event participants could discuss and vote on the most promising project afterward. With the winner receiving a check and Awesome Award right at the event.
  • Keep it lightweight. We need to minimize the transaction cost on us and on projects. If we create a bureaucratic or unweildy process, it’ll be too hard to do every month.
  • Let’s give it a geographic flavor. Mark has proposed that we start with a $1,000 award monthly — and include a second $1,000 award specifically for projects from Brazil. Given the importance of making Drumbeat a truly global project, this seems like a great idea to me.

What do you think? Post your feedback as comments here, or on the Drumbeat community list. Or join the next Drumbeat community call to help us move the awesome forward!

(Thanks again to Tim and Elizabeth from the Awesome Foundation for sharing their insight with us.)